AAP’s Delhi Template

FOLLOWING yet another massive mandate, Arvind Kejriwal
was sworn in as Chief Minister of Delhi on Sunday for the third time in a row.
The AAP overcame an extremely tough challenge posed by the Bharatiya Janata
Party that rallied all its Union ministers, chief ministers and MPs under the
leadership of Home Minister Amit Shah who has acquired the legend of being the
unbeatable Chanakya. The AAP victory is credited to the robust high wall it
built which the shrill BJP propaganda portraying Kejriwal as ‘anti-Hindu’ and
‘anti-nationalist’ failed to scale. Kejriwal projected his own brand of
Hinduism by reciting Hanuman chalisa during a public interaction. His daughter told
the media that her father had taught her good values of Hinduism, such as those
enshrined in the Bhagwad Gita. Among the promises the AAP made was inclusion of
‘deshbhakti’ (nationalism) in the curriculum of Delhi schools. Throughout the campaign the AAP projected
itself as a political party wedded to the values of ‘positive nationalism’
(sakaratamak rashtriyata) contrary to the values of ‘negative nationalism’
(nakaratamak rashtriyata) which it alleged the BJP practised. The fact that the
AAP got nearly as sweeping a mandate as in the last election goes to show that
the voters sided with the AAP stance, rather than the BJP’s.

However, to believe that the AAP 2020 poll strategy can
be replicated as a national template or even as state templates would be sheer
political naivete. The political analysts of liberal persuasion—the favourite
punching bags of the hyper-nationalists—as well as the AAP strategists at the
apex and in the states will be ignoring the Delhi-specific factors that
compelled Kejriwal (on his own or at hired political strategist Prashant
Kishor’s advice) to adopt the ears-open-but-mouth-shut stance with respect to
the rude reviling by the BJP. Delhi has a sizeable traditional support base of
the BJP since Jan Sangh days. They are fiercely pro-BJP and pro-Modi but they
were inclined to see Kejriwal as the chief minister of Delhi on account of his
performance. The BJP of Delhi is a house with at least three separate kitchens
and the fighting within did not inspire confidence. Kejriwal strictly avoided
attacking Modi in order not to alienate the traditional BJP voters that seemed
inclined to vote for him. If they voted for him, he would not only gain, but he
would also deprive the BJP of a sound base to start with. It was in order to
please the hardcore Hindu voters that Kejriwal projected himself as a devotee
of Hanuman. Those who supported the BJP for fighting for a Ram temple could
never find any fault with the Hinduism of Kejriwal as Hanuman was known as the
greatest bhakta of Ram.

Another Delhi-specific factor that shaped Kejriwal’s
ears-open-but-mouth-shut stance was Shaheen Bagh, which had become a focal
point of opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). No matter how hard
the BJP tried to link Kejriwal to Shaheen Bagh, the AAP leader kept quiet. It
was not the hardcore liberal Kejriwal that the nation came to know during the
Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption
campaign. It was a Kejriwal who did not want to pay high costs for
counter-aggressive liberalism. It was a Kejriwal who, even though his party had
voted against the CAA in Parliament, did not want to be identified with the
street protests against the amendment. The political analysts of liberal
persuasion have been full of praise for Kejriwal for what they should have denounced
as opportunism or betrayal to the cause of constitutional and democratic
values. Nevertheless, Kejriwal’s antiseptic approach to street anti-CAA
protests worked. Even Muslims voted for him, though he shunned them. Kejriwal’s
this tactic too was aimed at capturing the traditional base of the BJP, as also
to assure the large numbers of non-BJP Hindu voters who had bought the BJP
propaganda that the CAA was an amendment to give citizenship, not to take away
the citizenship of any Indian and hence saw the protests like Shaheen Bagh as
pointless and politically motivated. However, these specific factors of Delhi
will not be there in Goa or any other state. The AAP or any non-BJP alliance
intending to challenge the BJP would have to make a state-specific template for
every state.